Alternate history is the branch of speculative fiction that explores what might have happened if history had taken a different turn. The obvious changes, like the Nazis winning World War II, have filled innumerable novels. Fortunately, the anthology Worlds That Weren't avoids the obvious with its four fine new novellas from four superior authors: Harry Turtledove, S.M. Stirling, Mary Gentle, and Walter Jon Williams.

The collection opens with "The Daimon," written by Harry Turtledove, AH's best-known practitioner. In Turtledove's turning point, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates chooses to accompany General Alkibiades to war instead of remaining in Athens, and sets Alkibiades on a triumphant, terrible new course.

Set in the British India-dominated alternate history of The Peshawar Lancers, S.M. Stirling's novella is a rousing old-fashioned adventure. "Shikari in Galveston" follows a hunting safari through a regressed American frontier that might have given even Daniel Boone pause.

A prequel to her Book of Ash tetralogy, Mary Gentle's novella "The Logistics of Carthage" concerns Christian warriors serving pagan Turks in a North Africa conquered by Visigoths instead of Vandals, and is the strongest story in Worlds That Weren't.

The collection concludes with "The Last Ride of German Freddie," in which Nebula Award winner Walter Jon Williams considers what might have happened if the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had taken himself and his superman theories to the Wild West. --Cynthia Ward

From Publishers Weekly
What if, in any single moment, history had taken a different turn? In the engaging Worlds That Weren't, bestselling author Harry Turtledove imagines a different fate for Socrates (which he spells Sokrates); S.M. Stirling envisions life "in the wilds of a re-barbarized Texas" after asteroids strike the earth in the 19th century; Sidewise winner Mary Gentle contributes "a piece of flotsam" from her epic Ash a story of love (and pigs) set in the mid-15th century, as European mercenaries prepare to sack a Gothic Carthage; and Nebula nominee Walter Jon Williams pens the tale of Nietzsche intervening in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This hardcover gathering of four alternate-history tales confirms that alternate history is indeed riding high. Turtledove's "The Daimon" is a carefully researched piece featuring the philosopher Sokrates as he considers joining the Athenian expedition against Sicily in 415 B.C.E. The stirring western that S. M. Stirling contributes is set in a Texas that is an outpost of the imperial army of India and has become the center of civilization after the destruction of the British empire. Mary Gentle's anything-but-gentle "The Logistics of Carthage" is about a fifteenth-century female warrior, Yolande, who during a lull in battle is visited by an archaeologist from the far future. Walter Jon Williams' "The Last Ride of German Freddie" is the gunfight at the O.K. Corral--kind of. In it the Earps play minor roles and Doc Holliday, quite the philosopher, is good friends with Friedrich ("Freddy") Nietzsche. All four novellas unfold with almost mathematical precision and are flawlessly executed. Of course, in another way they are all quite mad, and thus hardly for every non-alt-history reader. John Mort
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FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In this all-new collection of original novellas, four masters of alternate history turn back time, twisting the facts with four excursions into what might have been by traversing Worlds That Weren't." "Under the influence of the philosopher Sokrates, the Athenian general Alkibiades leads his soldiers to victory over the Spartans in Harry Turtledove's "The Daimon."" "Set in the same universe as The Peshawar Lancers, "Shikari in Galveston" by S. M. Stirling features an Angrezi aristocrat's hunting expedition into the wilds of Texas - and his growing admiration for the natives who dwell there." "In 1453, a rather different Turkish Empire raised the flag of Astarte's Bloody Crescent over Constantinople. Four years later, European mercenaries find themselves stranded on the coast of North Africa - with an embarrassing corpse- in "The Logistics of Carthage" by Mary Gentle." In Walter Jon Williams's "The Last Ride of German Freddie," a mysterious Old World figure stalks Tombstone, Arizona, as a cardsharp, trading philosophy - and lead - with the likes of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

What if, in any single moment, history had taken a different turn? In the engaging Worlds That Weren't, bestselling author Harry Turtledove imagines a different fate for Socrates (which he spells Sokrates); S.M. Stirling envisions life "in the wilds of a re-barbarized Texas" after asteroids strike the earth in the 19th century; Sidewise winner Mary Gentle contributes "a piece of flotsam" from her epic Ash a story of love (and pigs) set in the mid-15th century, as European mercenaries prepare to sack a Gothic Carthage; and Nebula nominee Walter Jon Williams pens the tale of Nietzsche intervening in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT - Sherry Hoy